


Swarm

by MaryPSue



Series: Hive [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Horror, Mind Manipulation, is it still alternate universe - canon divergence if it's a canon divergence of your own fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 08:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13096260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue
Summary: The forensic report, afterwards, says that the fire was started by a filmy scarf that Mabel had carelessly left draped over a lamp too long, too close to the bulb. Only the bones of the house remain, scorched black and warped with heat. Only the bones of the Pines parents remain, scorched black and fragile with ash. Nobody’s fault.The children’s great-uncles are already waiting at the hospital when the ambulance arrives........Bad end AU ofHive.





	Swarm

Dipper and Mabel leave without a fuss at the end of the summer. It’s best for everyone, this way. Fewer questions.

Each of the twins have been ‘the weird one’, at one point or another. They haven’t yet both been ‘the weird one’. There are whispers about flowers in the attic, about birth defects, about demons. At least they have each other, but the distance between Piedmont and Gravity Falls is excruciating, and grows more so by the day.

The forensic report, afterwards, says that the fire was started by a filmy scarf that Mabel had carelessly left draped over a lamp too long, too close to the bulb. Only the bones of the house remain, scorched black and warped with heat. Only the bones of the Pines parents remain, scorched black and fragile with ash. Nobody’s fault. 

The children’s great-uncles are already waiting at the hospital when the ambulance arrives. 

…

Gravity Falls is home, and family, and heart, and everything else that anyone could ever want, a perfect little sanctuary tucked away in the hollow of a valley in the middle of nowhere. 

Mabel is content there. Dipper is not. 

It’s - difficult - to want something for yourself, when you’re part of something so cohesive, something that is so good and warm and right. But Dipper’s very expensive camera equipment is gathering dust, and the anomalies of Gravity Falls still haven’t returned, and - somewhere, very deeply buried, he and Stan both remember Mabel’s carelessly-tossed scarf.

In the end, Stan takes Dipper’s side, and Dipper takes his first Bigfoot-hunting trip.

It’s only a day trip, a little ways down the coast. He can’t imagine being away any longer, any farther, not now. Not yet. But - it’s exhilarating. Like a salt sea wind to the inside of the head.

The world doesn’t have to be bound by the town limits of Gravity Falls. 

…

While Dipper’s becoming the darling of the online cryptid-hunting community, Mabel’s building a sweater empire. She’s manning (womanning?) her booth at the Bend farmers’ market when she meets Henry. 

Henry is six feet seven inches of gangly, freckled, bespectacled redhead, and Mabel looks up into his hazel eyes and _has to have_  him. Not like she _had to have_  the Princess Cornicorn playset for Christmas when she was eight years old. More like she _had to have_  her brother when he was only halfway assimilated and there was a hollow spot in the middle of her and she _needed she needed she needs -_

It’s a year before she tells Henry what her family, her town is. Before she gives him the choice.

He chooses to stay, of course. By now he’s already practically one of them.

(Mabel doesn’t turn him. Not yet. But it’s not as though he’s leaving, not now. It’s not as though he has anything else left.)

…

Memory is a tricky thing.

 _Removing_  memories is an even trickier thing. And, while it’s possible to explain the existence of physical evidence left behind when the memories are erased, it makes it much harder to keep the dam from breaking.

Agents Powers and Trigger return to Washington uncertain of what they were doing in Gravity Falls in the first place. What they find in Washington only leads to more confusion. They were investigating Gravity Falls, but why? What was there that warranted so much surveillance? So much intrigue? 

They’re the laughingstock of the FBI. They’re pulled up before their superiors more than once for pursuing a will-o’-the-wisp. Chasing down an x-file. Following a _hunch_.

But there’s something in Gravity Falls. And eventually, the agents make their way back to the source.

…

The longer and the farther Dipper stays away, the more his mind feels like his own.

He’s a fixture at conventions. He joins other hunters’ videos and drops in on podcasts. He’s always chasing myths and monsters across countries, continents. So long as he always returns to Gravity Falls, nothing stops him. 

Her name is Mikaela, Kay for short. Her focus is ghost hunting. She and Dipper have run into each other at four of the five last conventions he’s been to. He’s sat in some of her panels. She’s insightful and brilliant and funny. 

The thing in the back of his head snaps and snarls, but the convention’s in Maine and Dipper, emboldened by the distance and the head-rush of defiance, asks her if she wants to get drinks. 

…

Mabel doesn’t assimilate Henry.

And doesn’t assimilate Henry.

And doesn’t assimilate Henry.

Sure, he asked her not to. Sure, his entire life is basically within Gravity Falls now anyway. But - Mabel _wants_  him. She _wants_ , and yet, it feels like…like she’s waiting for something. Like Christmas morning. Like the spotlight to come up.

It’s exhilarating when they both propose (on the same day, through an honestly hilarious twist of fate), it’s brilliant, it’s wonderful, it’s everything…except, it’s not time yet. Dipper comes back for the wedding and everyone is home and even Grunkle Stan seems happy, genuinely happy and not just background happy, when Henry leans down and kisses Mabel, and if ever there was a perfect dramatic moment to give him a lungful of spores it would be this one, but…she doesn’t. Even she isn’t sure why.

And then, there comes a day when one, two, three little brand new sparks tug briefly at the back of her mind, and Mabel realises, _oh. That’s why._

…

They’re in Japan, and it’s the middle of the night, and they’re flying out at an ungodly hour of the morning, but Dipper wakes up and knows that this is _it_. This is going to be his one chance.

He leans across the bed and shakes Kay awake, grips her by the shoulders like he can embed what he knows into her flesh. The basement. Mabel’s scarf. The sickening, sweet, slow tug of contentment.

“Whatever happens,” Dipper demands, giving Kay another shake. Her eyes are wide, frightened, and he thinks _good_. She ought to be afraid. Of this, of him. “Don’t - _don’t_  let me convince you to join.”

“What?” Kay asks, and Dipper shakes his head. It’s already creeping back up on him, driving its hooks into his consciousness. There’s nowhere on this planet far enough away to be free. 

“I’m going to try to tell you I’m happy. That we’re all happier, better, that you’d be happier and better too. _Don’t listen to me_. Whatever you do, _don’t listen -”_

When Dipper wakes up, Kay starts. She’s up, a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth as she throws the rest of her toiletries back into her suitcase.

“Hey,” Dipper says. “Was I talking in my sleep last night?” 

…

Stan hasn’t been himself, since.

Strictly speaking, none of them have been quite _themselves,_ since strictly speaking none of them are separate individuals any longer. But Stan - Ford thinks he took it hard. Possibly because of his age. Possibly because he fought. 

A lot of things, Ford thinks, would be better if Stan hadn’t fought. 

But he had, and now the damage is done, and Stan’s…not unhappy. The hive supports him, of course, provides a hammock of love and joy and positivity even when Stan’s own inclination is towards a low. There’s something melancholy in him, something Ford almost wishes he’d recognised when they were still children. Perhaps then things would have turned out differently.

Perhaps not.

But whatever the melancholy, it seems to have been the thing that gave Stan his edge. He doesn’t joke, as much, anymore. Doesn’t laugh like he used to. Of course he’s content, no one could be part of something as wonderful as their hive and be _un_ happy, but - every so often Ford can’t help a traitor thought that Stan could be happi _er_. 

So perhaps he has encouraged Stan’s tendency towards solitude. The taxidermy in the shed, the lone hunting trips - it’s all right, now. Stan’s one of them, part of them. Giving him his space won’t do any further harm. 

It’s only when Stan’s thoughts explode with fear and pain all over the inside of Ford’s head that Ford realises how wrong he was.

…

The site is an abandoned mental hospital, shut down due to flooding in the lower levels. Kay’s got a new EMF ‘ghost box’ apparatus that’s supposed to let spirits speak in real-time using electromagnetic frequencies that she’s been dying to test out. Dipper’s behind the camera for once.

The first floor is uneventful. There isn’t much by way of activity, and Kay seems disappointed. The second floor, though, is full of cold spots and eerie feelings, sudden inexplicable anxiety and overwhelming sadness. 

Kay’s in the middle of excitedly telling the viewers why these emotions might be transferred from spiritual residue when Dipper hears it. A _bang_ , away down the closed-off hall to their right. He can’t help himself, he whips the camera away from Kay’s face to look through the window, and could swear he sees a flash of light through the dingy window set into the metal double doors.

“Did you see that?” he demands, pointing at the hall. Kay’s there in an instant, turning to mug surprise and excitement at the camera as she pushes open the doors and steps through.

And then she’s gone.

The forensic report, afterwards, notes that the damp from the flooded basement had caused the entire east wing to rot out from the inside. The first and second floors had both collapsed long before Mikaela ever set foot within its doors. She fell three stories.

Dipper stops going to conventions, after that.

…

The two government agents have cornered Stan, on a lone hunt. One of them’s shot him, while his mouth was open. One petal of flesh dangles limp, teeth chattering, from the bottom of his face. 

Mabel pulls him back, into the crowd, out of harm’s way as the townsfolk press in. The younger of the two government agents is still waving his pistol around, like it’ll do anything, naked fear in his eyes. The older of the two has his back against a tree and the look of a man condemned to death.

“Stay back, all of you!” the younger agent yells, pointing his pistol in Ford’s general direction. Ford wonders if he’s the one who shot Stanley. “I’m warning, you, I’m - I -”

The hive closes like a fist.

…

“Congratulations!” the nurse at the hospital in Bend says, looking from Henry to Mabel. Her smile falters slightly at the sight of Mabel’s eyes, but she recovers impressively, tucking a baby into each of Mabel’s arms and one into Henry’s. “You’ve delivered three healthy, happy infants.” She looks at Mabel a bit oddly, again, as she adds, “They’re certainly the happiest, calmest infants I’ve seen in a long time.”

Mabel beams at the nurse. The nurse gives her a strained smile, and pats her knee through the hospital blanket. “Anything I can get you…dear…before I go?”

“No,” Mabel says, looking down at the little bundles in her arms. “Thank you!”

Three healthy, happy babies, she thinks, rocking the girls gently in her arms while Henry stares with astonished wonder down at his son. Three healthy, happy little queens-to-be.

Very soon, the Gravity Falls hive will no longer be alone.


End file.
